1. Field of the Invention
The invention is related to the field of communication systems, and in particular, to systems and methods of transmitting data from a communication network to a communication device using information on a card.
2. Statement of the Problem
The Internet provides a wealth of data, programs, files, etc, that are accessible with an Internet connection of an access provider. Hundreds of content providers help to form the Internet. The content providers host data and allow users of the Internet to access the data. Each content provider has an Internet address that defines it location in the Internet. The Internet address may be defined by a Uniform Resource Locator (URL), such as http://www.companyx.com, to make the Internet address easier to remember. The data hosted by the content providers can also be accessed through a URL, such as http://www.companyx.com/data.
To find specific data on the Internet, such as a particular video, the Internet user needs to know how to navigate through the Internet to the proper content provider. Generally, this means that the Internet user must know the URL of the data or perform a proper search using one of the search engines. This may be difficult, as the Internet user may not know the URL of a particular video and may not be able to find it. Also, the volume of data on the Internet is so large that searching can be difficult. In searching for the video, a search engine may provide a hundred false hits before finding the video, if at all.
Once the video is found, the content provider hosting the video transmits the video to the computer or other device of the Internet user. The other devices being developed to access the Internet, are cell phones, Personal Digital Assistants (PDA), Palm Pilots, etc. A PDA, for instance, may not be able to receive a video from the content provider in the same format as a computer. The PDA may only be able to receive the video in MPEG2 for a 240×320 screen, while the computer can receive the video in MPEG4 for a 1024×1280 screen. In order for the PDA to be able to receive the video, the access provider, the content provider, or another system re-formats the data in a format suitable for the target device. The user of the PDA needs to know the operating parameters of the PDA and provide those parameters to the system doing the formatting. Unfortunately, providing the operating parameters may be a task too difficult for most people to perform and is prone to human error.
Some of the data available on the Internet is free while other data is not. Some content providers ask for a credit card number before allowing access to data. There are also some payment services available for Internet purchases. Unfortunately, repetitiously entering payment information can be annoying and is again prone to human error.